LOST DAYS · 5 The setting sun cast a dazzling array of colors into the silent ghost town. The neglected place was devoid of the human beings who once ruled over it. All that remained were the hideous and terrifying “monsters,” evolving into all-powerful beasts that were now the supreme rulers of the earth. It took merely a month for these monsters to wreak havoc upon all the creatures of the world, their musclebound, ferocious forms offering no mercy as they laid waste to the land…or so they thought. But a single girl survived the carnage. A gunshot thudded through the air in a flash of orange that matched the early evening sky. The “Bear-Rilla” monster that almost made it to the muzzle of her gun exploded, blood and flesh falling like confetti onto the pavement. A single overgrown talon tore through the torrent of gore, aimed straight for the girl’s head. She dodged it just in time, calmly adjusting the grip on her gun. The Meowtarus lunging at the girl lost its balance in the aftermath of the strike, exposing its unprotected chest. She responded immediately without mercy, pointing her weapon at the monster’s stomach and pulling the trigger. Lead plowed its way into its gut, and with a scream, the Meowtarus blew apart. The girl, spattered in blood, shot a glance toward the old shopping district. A horde of marauding monsters advanced upon her, slavering and screaming as they did. Taking a moment to catch her breath, the girl swung her gun around. The empty magazine flew out of the grip, clinking against the pavement. The moment the new one was loaded, she pointed her gun back toward the monsters and spoke. “How ’bout I blow all of you into tiny pieces, huh…?” With a loud bang, her gun began to spit fire. Her shots, coming in bursts of one or two, tore through the horde like a computer-guided laser, turning them all into chunks of red meat. The girl grinned evilly. Despite being hopelessly outnumbered, she was the perfect picture of serenity. And just as the seemingly infinite monster army started to bore her, the girl’s final shot brought the war’s end into full bloom across the blood-soaked street… I sighed at the seemingly perfect feat of gameplay taking place before me as the monologue continued in my mind. “Dancing Flash Ene.” … I saw there another side of Takane I’d had no idea about. The day of the festival was here. Thanks chiefly to Mr. Tateyama’s superhuman efforts, Headphone Actor was now complete. In fact, it was astonishingly well put together. I doubted anyone would ever guess it was built in only a week. But even more than the quality of the game itself, Takane’s skills were like nothing in this world. It was pinpoint accurate, like she was a robot programmed to destroy this game, and everyone who saw her play was struck with awe. Today, for the first time, I realized how cool someone playing a video game could really be. We were expecting dozens of matches to take place today, but as the day unfolded, things just grew more and more one-sided. I didn’t even need to check the results screen. Takane dominated. She’s incredible! This is so cool, Takane! I looked on in respectful admiration as she wrapped up another match. The dimness of the room made it hard to gauge her expression, but after pulling off such a flawless, magnificent victory, I’m sure she must have been satisfied with herself. She had to be. The thought made Takane seem like a real soldier in my eyes, battle-hardened and ready for action. The adulation poured out of my mouth. “Great work, Takane! You won again! Man, that was just…” Takane was right next to me, but in a way, she wasn’t. I need to call her the name everyone else uses to sing her praises…! “…Maybe I should call you Ene, though, huh?” Takane, basking in the light of the monitor, casually opened her mouth. “Shut up, you dumbass…” The words, backed by the pounding music from the game, moved me. I felt a shiver rush across my body. Another thing I had just learned today was that Takane had apparently taken second place at the nationwide championship for some online game or other. It made her, like, super Internet famous. She had real fans and everything. I just thought she was this typical girl, and now I couldn’t believe she had this aspect, too. But…man. That serenity, that presence of mind…in every way, she lived up to the Dancing Flash name. Yes! Yes, I know I’m a dumbass! Dang, this is cool! I was in no position to sit back and admire her, though. I stood up and smiled at the challenger. “All right, thanks for playing! I’m afraid you can’t take the challenge twice in a row. Thanks very much for that incredible battle!” The moment I finished speaking, applause thundered across the dimly lit science storage room. Every bit of floor space was occupied by onlookers. No doubt about it—we were attracting a pretty huge audience. The challenger, dressed in military gear, stood right up and saluted at Takane. “Thank you!” he shouted. “I never would’ve thought I’d get to play against Dancing Flash Ene in a place like this…It’s such an honor!” Yeah. I agree. That was a good match, too. Just watching from the side gave me goose bumps. Soon, the audience began whispering to itself. “I’m next!” “No, let me take her on next…!” It was an impressive sight. Takane’s entire fan base must have been in this room. Apparently this all got started because our first guest knew about Takane and told all his friends on the Net about this school festival. Once they got word about the event, Takane’s fans stormed our school from across the country for a chance to compete against her. That’s how all this happened. Well, maybe not “across the country,” but it kind of felt that way. Amid the chatter, I gave the signal to the next person up and guided him to the challenger’s seat. After a quick rundown of the rules from Takane, the game began and the audience instantly fell silent. This tension…it’s like watching a real sporting event. I didn’t know this since I had never really watched someone play before, but I had no idea competitive video games could get so exciting. Did they have a lot of championships like this? I’d love to see one sometime. “…Whoa, crap! The time!” Oops. I was so lost in the heat of the moment that I forgot my own job. I reluctantly took my eyes off the game screen and checked the clock and the number of people in the audience. Just as I feared, we had under fifteen minutes before the end of the festival. There was no way everyone in the room would be allowed a match with Takane, currently soaking up the applause once more after another blowout. This constant warfare must have been tiring her out by now. I stepped up to give her a bit more inter-match breathing room, using my new name for her in this realm. “You still doing okay, Ene?! We’re closing up in ten minutes, so hang in there!” Takane muttered something or other in response, but I couldn’t make it out between the game’s music and the clamor of the audience surrounding us. In terms of remaining time, we had room for two, maybe three more players. If we were proceeding along with our plan, Takane would need to produce a “winner” for us pretty shortly. The purpose of this wasn’t to establish the legend of Takane as this unbeatable monolith. Somebody needed to come home today with that fish specimen in their hands. Takane said that losing sometime during the second half of the day would help keep things exciting. Did she still remember that, though? I wasn’t so sure any longer. She was in full Dancing Flash mode right now, so much so that it’d make you cry. Perhaps all she was thinking about was how she’d hunt down her next opponent and wring every ounce of life out of him. That would be seriously bad news. But I didn’t want to wreck her concentration by bothering her too many times, either…I was starting to fidget a little, unsure which tack to take, when someone slapped a hand on my shoulder and a whispering voice found my ear. “…Pardon me, Haruka!” I turned around to find Ayano standing there. Kousuke mentioned she would be coming, but finally seeing her in person filled me with happiness. Come to think of it, he mentioned that his other siblings would visit, too, didn’t he? Did they ever show up? “Oh, Ayano! Sorry, I’m being pulled in a million directions right now…” “No, no, sorry to show up when you’re so busy,” she replied, scoping out her surroundings. “Running a pretty successful scene, huh? This is quite a surprise!” “Boy, you said it. I’m pretty shocked, too. We got a lot more visitors than we were expecting. I’m sorry, Ayano, I’m not sure that I can fit you in…” We had just a little time left and far too many competitors waiting. Ayano’s chances of getting a match in were slim. I bowed my head to her in regret, but she just smiled, presumably expecting to be disappointed. “Oh, I’ll be fine. The guy I came here with is in line to play, so she can just play with him instead…” She took her eyes away from me and turned toward someone off to Takane’s side. There I spotted a boy in a red hoodie staring blankly at the display. Unlike most of our current challengers, he didn’t seem to have any passion at all for video games, but given his position in line, he was likely up next to take on Takane. “That guy’s in my class at school,” Ayano explained, apparently fidgeting over something. “I didn’t want to go to the festival by myself, so I invited him, and he…well, said yes, I guess. And when I say I ‘invited’ him, it’s really just that, okay? Nothing weird or anything.” …Um, yeah. Sure. I can read you like a book, Ayano. I was about to sneer at her and say “Ha-haaa!” but stopped myself just in time, not wanting to come off like a creep. As we chatted, the boy in the red hoodie sat down on the challenger’s seat. He was our first younger contestant in quite a while. Even Takane looked a little amazed. Hang on. This might actually work out pretty well, timing-wise. If Takane played like she always did, she was almost certainly going to kick the snot out of this guy. That’d probably make him look pretty uncool in front of Ayano, and…um, that probably wouldn’t be good for him, I figured. So let’s convince Takane to throw the game on purpose instead. It’s about time for us to do that anyway, so…yeah. Sounds like a plan to me. No time like the present, either. I quickly tapped Takane on the shoulder, once again calling her the only name appropriate for her now. “Ene…I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re in the groove, but we better give out our prize before we have to close. Would you mind much if you let this kid beat you…?” Takane fixed her gaze on the boy in the hoodie. After all the hard work she put in today, having to tell her this at the very end honestly didn’t make me feel too good. But our aim today was to make the best “shooting gallery” we possibly could, and that meant keeping our customers happy, too. She gave me an affirmative nod and began to explain the game to the boy without complaint. I took a few steps back to gain a better vantage point, hoping to take in every moment of this final battle. …They seemed to take an oddly long time to get started. Taking a closer look, Takane and the guy in the hoodie seemed to be talking to each other. What about, though? It didn’t look like a friendly chat, whatever it was. I was a little concerned, but from my position, the game music drowned out their whole conversation. Since I couldn’t do much where I was, I looked to the side, only to find Ayano staring at them with a dour expression. Kind of like a mom during parent-visitation day at school. I figured I’d speak up about it. “What’s up, Ayano? Are you worried about something?” Ayano’s shoulders twitched a bit in surprise. “Kind of, I suppose,” she reluctantly said. “He…He can be kind of rude sometimes. He doesn’t like to mince words with people. I hope he’s not being mean to her or anything…” She really was acting like a worried mother. When it came to being rude, Takane was no slouch herself. That was one of her main personality traits. It made me wonder if this boy was the same way. …Ooh, if he is, that could be rough news. It’d pretty much immediately get Takane’s goat, for one. I had a bad feeling about it all, but there was no point needlessly worrying Ayano if I didn’t have to, so I tried to keep the conversation innocuous. “Well, I think it’ll be fine. Takane can be pretty patient with people, too, so—” The moment I said it, Takane spoke: “…I am not!!…going to lose.” …Well, that’s strange. She was doing the exact opposite of what we were planning. In a hurry, I shoved my way to Takane’s side. She’s gonna beat him?! This isn’t good! “Wait a sec, Takane…You have to lose this, remember?” But I didn’t even need to look at her face to know she was riled up. I don’t think any of my words even registered in her mind. “…I’ll become your servant and call you ‘master’ and everything! But I’m not gonna lose!” Another victory guarantee. We had to lose right now, but Takane was more excited for this match than any of the dozens she fought before. Did anyone else in the audience hear her shouting? Ooh, I guess Ayano did. Her face was red from ear to ear. Great. Well, nothing I could do now. Giving up on the effort, I stood and returned to Ayano’s side. My “sorry” and her “I apologize” came out almost simultaneously. A sound effect indicated that the final match of the day was underway. …Right from the start, I noticed something. There was an insane number of monsters popping up on-screen. She must have turned the difficulty level up to maximum. If she was thinking about losing, she never would’ve done that. Even if she was just trying to entertain the audience, she still wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t hard to guess what was going through Takane’s mind at that very moment. “Damn, she’s pissed…” I cradled my head with a hand. “Is she?!” Ayano exclaimed, the blood draining from her face. But no matter what we had to say about it, this battle couldn’t be stopped. That much I could tell with one look at the scene before me. The two skilled competitors’ button-mashing at their respective controllers resulted in an ocean of on-screen blood spurts.
Chapter 89
13 min read